
More of the Music of Gerry Rafferty
Hot Stamper Albums with Huge Choruses
Albums with Choruses that Are Good for Testing
Listen to the chorus on the first track, The Ark. On the best copies, it really gets loud without becoming harsh or shrill. So many popular albums have choruses (and guitar solos) that are no louder, and sometimes not even as loud, as the verses, which rob the songs of their drama.
This recording has the potential to give you a dramatic, powerful, loud chorus and it’s a thrill when you find a pressing that delivers on that promise.
One way we know to listen for these volume changes is that we actually play our records good and loud. When a dynamic recording such as this comes along, we have to watch our levels, otherwise, the chorus will overwhelm the system and room.
When playing this copy, be sure to set the level for the chorus of the first track. Everything should play just fine once that setting is correct, as the artist intended.
The double-tracked vocals on Whatever’s Written in Your Heart are a good test for transparency, resolution and Tubey Magic. There should clearly be two voices heard. The richness and the clarity of the best pressings make it possible to have it all.
This is a Rock Demo Disc of the highest order, but only when it’s playing on Big Speakers at Loud Levels. That’s what it takes to get City to City to sound the way we hear it in our shootouts.
Starting in the mid-70s, our reference system had to evolve in order to play the scores of challenging recordings that came out in that decade and the two preceding it. Looking back now, it’s clear that City to City, as well as other large scale works, in any genre, informed not only my taste in music but the actual stereo I play that music on.
I’ve had large scale dynamic speakers for close to five decades, precisely in order to play demanding recordings such as City to City and others like it, music I fell in love with all those years ago, and still enjoy the hell out of to this very day.
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